


on the other side

by afterglows



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, One Shot, References to Depression, we were going through it lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24317119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterglows/pseuds/afterglows
Summary: Kei knows what a mental low feels like much before it hits. He can feel it coming from miles away, like a train bounding down a track that he’s just pulled up to.  He can hear it, he can feel it, but he doesn’t have the power to stop it.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	on the other side

It was always midnight for Kei. At least these days, it was always midnight. When he lies on the couch and the hours bleed into the other, daybreak to moonlight to the neon numbers on the microwave flashing 12:00. What time was it really? It was always midnight.

Kei hears the key in the lock first, then the soft sound of a door opening and closing as quietly as possible, followed by the light scuffle of shoes being toed off.

“I’m awake, it’s okay,” Kei says, but that doesn’t stop Tetsurou from approaching with soft steps, continuing to move as if he’s afraid of waking Kei up. He doesn’t even turn on a single light and instead he lets the combination of the streetlamps and moon filtering in through the balcony windows cast a soft glow in the room.

He sits down in front of Kei, who has taken up the whole of the couch in his absence, who has been taking up the whole of the couch since Wednesday the week prior. Now it’s Thursday. Maybe Friday? It’s hard to tell. It’s always midnight.

“How are you feeling today, buttercup?”

Kei scowls; he hates the nickname but not enough to tell Tetsurou not to call him that. He could probably never tell Tetsurou to stop calling him anything when there’s so much love in his voice every time he addresses Kei. Kei isn’t sure if he deserves it.

“Today was … okay. I showered and I ate. I’m wearing your t-shirt,” he whispers like it’s a secret, and maybe it is. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know that the simple everyday things took so much effort that he had to report them to Tetsurou in a list of three.

“I almost called Tadashi, but I didn’t.”

Tetsurou hums in response. “But you’re allowed to, so why didn’t you?”

Kei shrugs. “It felt like I would be a bother.”

Tetsurou laughs lightly even though he knows it’s not a joke. Kei understands that he doesn’t think it’s funny. “It’s okay, you can try tomorrow or in a few hours. Whenever. What time _is_ it even?” He looks back towards to microwave; it flashes 12:00.

“I don’t know. It’s always midnight.”

\---

Kei knows what a mental low feels like much before it hits. He can feel it coming from miles away, like a train bounding down a track that he’s just pulled up to. He can hear it, he can feel it, but he doesn’t have the power to stop it. Sometimes, he would be able to avoid it. He would find a side road that will get him on his way without too much distress. But somewhere down the road, there was no avoiding it; he would be stuck with a train seemingly carrying a billion carts going by and he could never see what was past it. That was always the worst part, when it seemed like even after the barricades would go up, there would be nothing beyond them. It would stop feeling like something temporary and more like a clear sign that this would be where it all ends.

\---

“So what did you do today?” Tetsurou had been unpacking something that smelled greasy onto the coffee table in front of the couch—the couch where Kei had now been for almost three weeks now.

“I took a shower. I opened up my laptop to check my emails but I couldn’t get that far. I shut it and went back to sleep. I woke up at…” _Midnight. Always midnight._

Kei moves to sit up, the smell of the food getting to him where he was. He couldn’t tell if it was nausea or hunger.

“Did you want me to check for you?” Tetsurou offers. “I can.”

Kei nods and Tetsurou hands him a piece of fried chicken before standing to grab the laptop. Kei looks at the food in his hand and brings it to his mouth. _Oh. Hunger._ It tastes a little like nothing, but he eats it anyway.

By the time Tetsurou comes back, Kei has finished with his chicken and is looking for the rice he knows Tetsurou definitely ordered with it.

“Sorry, the rice is still in the bag.” He reaches into the paper bag, handing Kei the little container before setting himself down beside him.

“Where’s the laptop?”

“I didn’t want to check the emails beside you just in case… but good news! Your profs agreed on giving you an extension on missed assignments at no cost for two weeks and said to keep in touch if you need an additional extension.”

Kei felt as though a small weight had been lifted off of his chest, a weight he didn’t even realize was there. It was a little easier to breathe now.

“Oh, that is good.”

\---

Before Tetsurou, Kei didn’t know how he got through times like this.

_Usually under his covers in his room until Tadashi came to knock some sense into him with tough love. Sometimes when it came from someone who knew you your whole life, your brain stopped listening to sense and supplied you with more doubt instead._

Tetsurou was different in how he dealt with Kei at times like this. First, he’d been confused, because he didn’t know that Kei could get this bad. He knew Kei could beat himself up, that Kei was hypercritical of himself and his work, and that he sometimes had a habit of giving up before starting anything to avoid the disappointment of it not turning out well. But he didn’t know Kei could get like _this_.

After the confusion, came support. He would call more often to make sure Kei was doing okay; that he was still eating, still moving, still breathing.

This time, when Tadashi had called him and told him that Kei was having a hard time and that he didn’t think he’d be enough to help him this time, that he loved Kei but he also needed to do his school work, that he loved Kei but his love alone wasn’t going to be enough when he just couldn’t put in the time—

Tetsurou was there almost immediately. He packed a small bag for Kei and they had gone to his apartment, away from the stressors, but not completely disconnected.

The first thing Kei did was sit down on his couch and stare at the wall blankly.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Tetsurou laughed, but he knew it wasn’t a joke.

“None of us do, but I know one thing we _can_ do and it’s write an email to your profs.” And that was what they did. Just as they had sent it off, the power knocked out and Kei began to cry in earnest. He fell asleep to the feeling of Tetsurou’s hand carding through his hair and he woke up to the microwave blinking 12:00.

\---

Kei had Tetsurou type up an email for an extension.

\---

“I talked to Tadashi and Yachi today. They told me about all the things I missed this time,” Kei says around the sandwich Tetsurou bought for him from his favourite lunch bistro. He’s so glad it doesn’t taste like ash.

“Tadashi told me that his midterms went well, that they also went okay for Hinata – and that Kageyama is still an idiot who doesn’t really understand what the point of a midterm is anyway.” He hears the smile in his own voice as he talks about his stupid friends. Yachi had patiently waited for Tadashi to finish his updates before he passed the phone over to her so she could go on about the fact that she finished her movie poster midterm and she was happy with every single one she did. Kei was grateful for that. Grateful for his friends and grateful for the fact that his mood was teetering awfully close to good. His food doesn’t taste like ash and his friends are still his friends. His professors had granted another extension; he had always been a great student and they always gave chances to even the worst ones.

His mind isn’t the best place to be right now but he isn’t going to give up on it yet. Not when all his friends are still here.

\---

Kei hates the roller coaster of emotions, how he can go from feeling too much to not feeling a thing. Some days, when the depression really sets in, it feels like he’s a only shell of himself, and he’s not sure anything will ever feel quite the same again. The possibility of never experiencing life the way he did at his happiest becomes a real possibility and it is _devastating_. Nothing feels, smells, hears, tastes, or appears the same. His senses fail him. He looks at the time; it’s midnight again. He looks at Tetsurou and he knows more than anything that he loves him, but it doesn’t feel the same as usual. And it seems like he’ll never get it back again.

But he does, oh he does.

\---

They’re sitting side by side on the couch. Tetsurou bought back Chinese today from the same restaurant they’d went to for their shitty first date—well, maybe not _shitty_ , but for two university students who had almost no money after buying their required textbooks for the semester, there weren’t enough funds for anything amazing. The best thing about it had been the restaurant. The second best thing was Kei realizing: there was never going to be a decision better than the one he’d made when he said yes to Tetsurou asking (read: begging) for a date. There were so few things in life he has even been this sure about. It makes an indescribable feeling well up in his chest and spill out of his mouth before he even has time to make sense of it. He wants to say, _I love you_ , he thinks, _I love you,_ but instead he says, “Kiss me?”

Tetsurou chokes on his broccoli and looks at Kei as if he’s grown three extra heads and a set of horns. “Excuse me? One more time?”

Kei almost scowls. He doesn’t want it to be a big deal, but he had showered today, he ate some food earlier, but he didn’t talk to Tadashi or Yachi at all; it felt like a lot. He finally turned in an assignment, started on another two, and now he wanted a kiss.

“I… miss you like that… so please?” Kei doesn’t know how to describe the feeling when Tetsurou looks at him in this moment—but it’s heart wrenching, heart warming, heart annihilating. Kei feels all of those things and after weeks of feeling close to nothing, he welcomes it. He loves it and he loves Tetsurou and he loves the way he’s looking at him after the train has passed, waiting on the other side of the track, arms wide open, ready to take him and walk him through the aftermath, to get him through everything he missed while he was stuck.

“You are bad for my heart,” Tetsurou says, all love. Kei falls into his embrace, wanting for the first time in weeks to be this close.

“I almost want to say you’re too good for mine.”

Tetsurou laughs like it’s a joke but Kei knows it’s not. He truly means it. He’s even surer of that when Tetsurou’s lips meet his and he kisses him so tenderly, with so much heart, with so much patience. Weeks and weeks of giving to Kei and he continues to do so even through this and Kei loves him.

They stay curled up on the couch together for hours, and Kei almost feels like he can breathe again. At some point, he falls asleep. He doesn’t even realize this until he wakes up, no longer pressed into a warm body. Instead he’s in the same place he has been for the past month and it’s scary at first. Maybe it was all a dream? Maybe it was a convenient reality his mind made up because it craved some sort of normalcy after the weeks of feeling anything but normal—but then he feels the pillow that had been placed carefully under his head and the thick covers that have been pulled over him and it’s all coming back with clarity. Hours of kisses, each one sweeter and deeper than the last, each one saying I want you, I love you, I missed you. Tetsurou taking off his glasses and placing them on the coffee table beside them to properly get them out of the way to kiss him some more. Tetsurou giving and giving and giving.

Kei’s ears adjust and he finally opens his eyes to the sound of shuffling in the kitchen. He hadn’t put on his glasses but he can make out the silhouette of Tetsurou in the light of the fridge.

“Tetsu?” he mumbles softly. He’s too tired to form the rest of the syllables and, instead, lets out a soft yawn in lieu.

“Go back to sleep, buttercup. I’m just putting away our dinner. We can have it for lunch tomorrow or later today. Whenever.”

Kei makes a small noise of affirmation, setting his head down again. He’s trying to focus on the microwave but it’s much too hard. “… What time is it?” The refrigerator door closes and Tetsurou turns to look back at the machine that still flashes 12:00 at him.

“I’m not sure,” he says over the sound of a few soft mechanical beeps, “but I think it’s about time we change that.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my numero uno for editing/beta reading. the mess i am w/o extra help is not fit for the internet. and thanks to y'all for giving this lil oneshot a chance! maybe it's a little ooc, maybe it's a little self indulgent, but honestly, what fanfiction isn't? 
> 
> wrote this while thinking that getting out a the hole is always a process. the feelings come and go, some days are better than others, some days you can't do a thing. sometimes you feel so stuck, but you can always find your way out. it's also an ode to the ones who are always there. leave a comment and kudos if you like it! i haven't done this fanfiction thing in so long, be nice to me lol ;;


End file.
